Social recruiting site 2Vouch will be coming out of private beta and launching their public beta site on September 1st (i.e. next Monday)

We did a story on 2Vouch last month going through how the site works, but as a quick recap, 2Vouch aims to help employers find “hidden” candidates for vacant positions by leveraging the site members’ networks of friends/associates to drive referrals.

For recruiters and employers, 2Vouch makes it as easy as possible to participate by charging no fee to advertise. Companies only pay when they hire or place someone and there is a 110% money-back guarantee if the candidate doesn’t work out within the guarantee period.

For members, the incentive to refer (besides getting your mates a good job) comes from a reward of between $1400 and $2800 which they receive once their referral is hired. As a nice touch, members can put the cash in their pocket or assign it elsewhere, e.g. to charities, through the site.

The business model that allows rewards of that size to be paid is quite simple. Advertisers pay a fee to 2Vouch of approximately 3-4% of the salary offered upon placement of a referred candidate. 2Vouch takes a service fee and the rest is passed on to the referrer. With typical recruitment agency fees being in the range of 8-15% and anywhere up to 25% for executive recruitment, 2Vouch’s model makes them both a price and value play.

Riges Younan, CEO at 2Vouch, has over 12 years experience in recruiting in Australia, North America and the UK, so he knows the game. He explained the value side a little more for us: -

The best candidates come through referrals. So, we make it easy and efficient for companies to use the social networks of our members to get to people who are hard to reach

Many large corporations already know this and have offered referral fees for some time to employees who find friends to fill positions. 2Vouch makes the process more efficient for those organisations and will open up the world of referrals to smaller organisation as well.

Having signed up to the private beta, I’ve had a play with the site and I can say the interface is easy to use and intuitive. If you’ve ever used a job as either a job-seeker or advertiser then you’ll know what you’re doing stright away.

What’s great though, especially as I’m more interested in referring than advertising, is that the referral process is very easy. I don’t want anything to get in the way of me racking up $1.4-$2.8K payments and there is nothing I can see that will (short of a few employers who refuse to hire the randoms I refer )

All in all, I’m glad the site is finally out of private beta. It’s time to test the concept out on the market.

Having been on both sides of the recruitment fence over the past few years I know that there is a real need for this service and my prediction is that it will be a hit with other leading job sites creating me-too sites or building referral functionality into their offerings. The real test for 2Vouch (and we’ll be revisiting them from time to time) will be how they go then.